Sunday, February 18, 2018

Haaretz and Bieganski: How Poles Are More Vilified as 'Bestial' Brute Jew Killers Than German Nazis Themselves

Haaretz published today a piece by me entitled, "How Poles Are More Vilified as 'Bestial' Brute Jew Killers Than German
Nazis Themselves."You can read the piece at Haaretz here. The full text is below. I am very grateful to Haaretz editor Esther Solomon who worked with me on this piece.

To many
observers, not least those who are neither Polish nor Jewish, the highly
critical press coverage of Poland's new Holocaust law which seeks to criminalize declaring the complicity of the
Polish nation in the murder of Jews in WWII, appears both simple and clear.

Poles
contributed enthusiastically to the genocide of six million Jews. Poles did so
because they are staunchly Catholic, simple-minded and chauvinistic.
Right-thinking observers must perpetually goad Poles to drop their defenses,
acknowledge their guilt, and make amends.

Polish-Jewish
relations are thus reduced to a calculation performed with black and white
beads on one rod of an abacus. The black beads represent the bad, anti-Semitic
Poles. The white beads represent the exceptional, prejudice-free Poles. A "true"
historical retelling is only achieved when the black beads far outnumber the
white beads. The token righteous white bead – Jan Karski – is the main concession to any
semblance of balance. Karski was the Polish Home Army officer who brought the first eyewitness account of the Holocaust to Roosevelt.

The abacus
approach dominates public discussion. But it is intellectually and ethically
bankrupt, not just because it distorts beyond recognition a thousand years of
Polish-Jewish interaction and the unique horror of 1939-1945. The abacus
prevents historical clarity and ethical responsibility. And this debate matters
very much in the era of Trump.

In my book Bieganski: The Brute Polak Stereotype, I explored how people talk about the
Holocaust, its victims and its executors. Many, though not all, of those I
interviewed talked about Poles quite differently from how they talked about
Germans.

Visceral
vocabulary and animal references were prominent. This trend can be found in Fania Fenelon's Auschwitz memoir Playing for Time.
Fenelon writes that Poles exhibit a "particularly disturbing"
"bestiality;" they are "monsters," "brick-faced,"
"servile," "pigs," "bitches," "pests,"
and "a real cow." A Polish woman has "piercing little black eyes
like two glinting gems of anthracite set in a block of lard; she was shapeless
and gelatinous." A Polish woman "was big and fat and as strong as a
man – a monster! One would have been hard put to find any human traits in her
at all."

Survivors
often did not apply such visceral language to German Nazis. Fenelon describes
one officer. "Goodness, he was handsome. So handsome that the girls
instinctively rediscovered the forgotten motions of another world, running
dampened fingers through their lashes to make them shine, biting their lips,
swelling their mouths, pulling at their skirts and tops. Under the gaze of this
man one felt oneself become a woman again." This Nazi "wore his
uniform with incomparable ease and style … Insouciantly he laughed and joked,
conscious of his charm." Fenelon is describing Dr. Josef Mengele.

Nazis are not
seen as representational of Germany, a nation frequently referred to as
"civilized" and "decent" in contrast to "backward,
gray, gothic, primitive, Catholic" Poland." One madman, Hitler,
exploiting unique historical circumstance, Germany's humiliating WWI defeat,
and the punitive Versailles Treaty, forced otherwise "decent" Germans
to commit anti-Semitic crimes.

Poles, on the
other hand, as Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak
Shamir said,
"imbibe anti-Semitism with their mother's milk." One online post I
saw stated Poles "were like American rednecks from the Ole South who
loathed blacks."

All Poles
were, had always been, and would always be, chomping at the bit to murder Jews.
Scholars who have abandoned such racist essentializing in reference to other
ethnicities, apparently still believe it's legitimate practice in regard to
Poles, such as Paul Berman's 1994 New Yorker article that referred
to "darkest Poland".

Even
scholarly reviews of books about Nazi war criminals and Polish war criminals
use very different language. Scholars work hard to distinguish Nazism from
German identity. When Poles commit crimes, Poles qua Poles are guilty.

Even when Jan
Tomasz Gross published, in 2001 Neighbors:
The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland and 2006's Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after
Auschwitz, which did not advance a theory of Polish ethnicity as essentially
debased, the media response rushed to form that very conclusion.

Professor
Joan Mellen's review makes this clear: Poles qua Poles are guilty. "Polish
citizens of all classes…Poles of all social classes … The old order and the
army, the new Communist apparatus, the cardinal and his bishops – all conspired
to kill Poland's remaining Jews," she indicts. Note the adjective:
"all." All Poles are murderous anti-Semites. Why? Because
"Anti-Semitism was so embedded in the culture of Poland. [Poles express]
pure, unregenerate evil."

Elie Wiesel described post-war anti-Semitism in
Poland using this same vocabulary of bestiality: "low, primitive, vile and
ugly in the human animal."

With
increasing frequency, Polish, Catholic peasants, not German Nazis, are
positioned as the quintessential Holocaust criminal. It is easier for clean,
well-educated, progressive audiences to accept dirty, backward, superstitious
peasants as the perpetrators of the twentieth century's most notorious crime.
German Nazis are too like modern audiences.

Leading Nazis
were, like us, clean, modern, progressive, and well-educated. In fact, though,
Nazism was not the fruit of the village, the church, or the past. Scientific
racism was a product of the university, the place that true moderns believe
will rectify our primitive errors and make us better people.

America
engages in a similar sleight-of-hand. Poor, white, rural, Christian Southerners
are deployed universally as a personification of the ultimate hater. In our movies,
"rednecks" are idiot savant banjo players and anal rapists, as in the
film Deliverance. Poor white southerners, rednecks, trailer trash, and
hillbillies, are to blame for slavery and Jim Crow. As long as a toothless,
drawling pick-up truck driver dominates the crime scene, the rest of us are
exonerated. Poor whites recognize their demonization. Thus, they flocked to
Trump, their putative champion.

Just so with
the brute Polak stereotype being trotted out, with abacus accessory, to remove guilt
from the "civilized" world for the Holocaust. As long as
anti-Semitism is a crime committed by dirt-stained Catholic farmers, not by
educated, "handsome" elites, modern, progressive Americans are
insulated from the agony of confronting what human beings can do. And Poles
will recognize their demonization, and flock to ever-more nationalist
champions.

We need to
recognize that the monolithic stereotyping of Poles actually damages our
understanding of complicity and responsibility for the Holocaust.

As Gitta Sereny
wrote in her 1996 article, "The Complexities of Complicity," in the London Times, challenging the
anti-German essentializing of Daniel Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners: "Murderous bigotry is not
ingrained in the character of any one nation but is part of the human
condition. It is not only young Germans who, as did happen after 1945, needed
to be retaught humanity, but all children [of all races] need to learn this now
and forevermore."

I support free
speech and I oppose this new Polish law. But the tumult that prompted the law
will not die down till the false stereotypical calculus of the abacus is
smashed.

We need,
rather, a mirror. The author of atrocity is not them; it's us.

Danusha Goska is the author of Bieganski, the Brute Polak Stereotype
(Academic Studies Press, 2010).You can read the first chapter of
the book here.

I'm glad you liked the article. I hope you will read the whole book. :-)

The initial piece I sent Haaretz did not include the Sereny quote. I sent in a shorter piece. The editor wanted more facts to be fleshed out so I took material from the book. Thus, the quote to which you refer.

Congratulations, dr Goska, it is a wonderful, articulate and erudite article. Good job to Haaretz for publishing it too.

Unfortunately, many such articles and much work of people of good will will be needed to undo the damage wrought by the PIS government. It was even stated today by Szewach Weiss, a great friend of Poland who has so far been rather supportive of this government. Now he is saying they are reversing the progress of the last 25 years.

Thank you, Dr. Goska for your splendid article. We should discuss all this matters, of course. In the same time, however, I would like to confess: I am a strong supporter of new Polish IPN Law. You see, in 1939 my Father fought with the Polish Navy (the Hel Peninsula) against the German agression. Then he spent next 6 years as a P.O.W. His first wife died (from malnutrition diseases, etc.), leaving two kids, (my stepsister and stepbrother), just immediately after my Father returned from the German P.O.W. camp. My Grandfather, from my Mother's side, died in 1940 in the Ural mines. One good Jew brought to his wife his old-fashioned clock, only thing spared; nothing left after him. No graveyard. Pretty soon the rest of this family went to Siberia. They survived, however their health were rather broken. When the second wife of my Father, my Mother, gave the birth, I was borne. In the very same moment my Mother died. I have never seen her alive. And so on... . The third wife of my Father rised me. Her sister perished in the Wola Massacre, her brother was killed in the Warsaw Uprising (both 1944). My Wife's aunt, the nun, was killed by Germans in the concentration camp. My Mother-in-Law's family survived, albeit with poor health, among the others, because, a some German neighbor gave them some milk from time to time. She was a good, decent woman, just like the Jew, I mentioned, who bruoght my Grandpa's clock. And so on... and so on. We are ordinary Polish people. Hitler & Stalin, and their supporters did us all this harm. It supposed to be like a kind of Memento for the Mankind.I am very glad that the present Polish government very clearly stated to the whole World that it was no 'Polish Death Camps' in existence during WWII. We are (just like the Israelis) the nation of fighters. Nothing less. So..., now you understand.For your convenience (and all concerned): http://www.msz.gov.pl/resource/e7497fea-f446-4f82-80b1-169d609d697a:JCR Antoni J. Wrega, Warsaw, Poland

Antoni J Wrega, first, I am sorry for all the suffering you and your family have endured.

Second, you write, "So..., now you understand."

That's a rather unfortunate and insulting sentence. I have spent thirty years studying Polish Jewish relations. I have interviewed people with stories like you. I tell these stories in my prize winning book, which I hope you will read.

Toni W. Thank you. I spoke in haste. If you saw the feedback I generally get, I think you'd understand my touchiness. For a sample, see Sue Knight's post elsewhere on this page. She quotes some of the reaction at Haaretz, which, alas, is not atypical.

Danusha,Very well written exposition. Congratulations for having Haaretz publish it.Your example of black and white beads on one rod of an abacus is spot on. All are black except for a white one, which is all that will be permitted to collectively represent Jan Karski, Irena Sendler, Witold Pilecki, the Ulma family, Żegota, and a multitude of others acknowledged and not at Yad Vashem. And of course, allowance must not be made for the many required shades of gray. Because most Americans learn virtually nothing of Polish history and culture, the black beads have come to represent the false, malicious, and defamatory narrative that has been widely and thoughtlessly accepted as fact. As you point out, that narrative, particularly during World War II, portrays Poles as intrinsically backward and bestial, as well as embodying a natural predisposition toward evil that transcends that of the Germans.While I support neither this law nor Holocaust Denial laws, I’m hopeful that the discourse generated by the Polish law will help elicit the many shades of gray that are critically needed to correct the narrative, provide an accurate portrayal, and ultimately smash, as you so well put it, “the false stereotypical calculus of the abacus.”

Amazing that Haaretz published it, as it's the most leftist and polonophobic paper in Israel. I submitted a well-written, pro-Poland article on the "Polish concentration camps" issue to Jerusalem Post -- putatively a "conservative" paper -- and they have not even responded.

What I don't understand is this: During WW2, Poland had the largest underground army in Europe, the largest organization for rescuing Jews, and the largest number of private initiatives to rescue Jews -- at the highest personal cost to the rescuers and their families.

On the other hand, Hungary was on Hitler's side, had a collaborationist government, had its Jews rounded and roughed up by Hungarians and delivered into German hands and, ultimately, Auschwitz. 20.2% of Hungarians voted in 2014 for the overtly fascist, explicitly anti-Semitic Jobbik party.

Yet Netanyahu is pals with Orban, supports him in the fight with Soros (which I applaud), there is hardly any attack on Hungary by Jewish voices, except if they speak as prog-lefties, not Jews. All this fury of Israel and the world's Jewry plus their amen corner in the progmedia (there are none other) is directed solely at Poland.

Haaretz the most Polonophobic paper? Your theory drives from your view of the left as being Polonophobic. Jerusalem Post and the Times of Israel publish pieces attacking Poles much more frequently than Haaretz and Haaretz does publish pieces like the one being discussed.

And you support Orban agaist Soros?? FMD, as we say in Australia. I'll leave you to work that one out.

Hello Max, this is why I feel this is a political agenda. If it was about what actually happened in WW2 surely it would be the nations that actually fought in the Axis that were getting all this "untering" - not Poland, which fought on the Allied Side?

Where its all leading to, I don't know. Time will tell, I guess.

And, by the way, I am not wanting the nations that fought on the Axis Side "untered". Its an unGodly thing to do to anyone. And in any case, surely the truth about WW2 is that both sides did some terrible things?

@Peter RechniewskiI am not a habitual reader of the Israeli press, and being on the Right, certainly not the socialist one. However, the only items that I had read, prior to D.G.'s article were by a certain Ofer Aderet. Try him, lots of material about Poland there.As to Orban and Soros I've worked that out in spades. I consider Orban the best and most hope-inspiring political leader in the West, and Soros one of the most evil men to walk the Earth in the last half century. But then, as your surname indicates you might understand, de gustibus non disputandum est. We clearly sail on different ships, and that's that.Max Denken

I've read Ofer Advert. Not impressive and definitely both intellectually lazy and one-eyed. However, Haaretz also prints articles that approach these matters differently on more occasions tahn JP or TOI.

Politics is not a matter of taste but a matter of choice based on world view, general disposition etc. Soros is a very successful, anti-democratic, manipulative nationalist whose approach has inspired PiS with such great results. He is also responsible for the rehabilitation (ongoing) of antisemites and fascists from Horthy's period, so yes he may be inspiring to some.

I wonder what Soros has done that can be consituted as evil? "One of the most evil men to walk the earth in the last half century" along with such worthies as Stalin, Mao, Ceausescu, Marcos and Dick Cheney . . .mmmmm.

Bieganski the Blog exists to further explore the themes of the book Bieganski the Brute Polak Stereotype, Its Role in Polish-Jewish Relations and American Popular Culture. These themes include the false and damaging stereotype of Poles as brutes who are uniquely hateful and responsible for atrocity, and this stereotype's use in distorting WW II history and all accounts of atrocity. This blog welcomes comments from readers that address those themes. Off-topic and anti-Semitic posts are likely to be deleted. Your comment is more likely to be posted if: Your comment includes a real first and last name.Your comment uses Standard English spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Your comment uses I-statements rather than You-statements. Your comment states a position based on facts, rather than on ad hominem material. Your comment includes readily verifiable factual material, rather than speculation that veers wildly away from established facts. T'he full meaning of your comment is clear to the comment moderator the first time he or she glances over it. You comment is less likely to be posted if:You do not include a first and last name.Your comment is not in Standard English, with enough errors in spelling, punctuation and grammar to make the comment's meaning difficult to discern.Your comment includes ad hominem statements, or You-statements. You have previously posted, or attempted to post, in an inappropriate manner. You keep repeating the same things over and over and over again.